Conflagration Read Online Free Page B

was one of the metaphysical triggers of their power, and an exclusive romance between two of them simply could not be if they were to function as was expected of them. Knowledge, and the demands of what they had become in this world and the Other Place, did not make the separation any easier. For the first time, Argo had turned to alcohol for solace. Drinking was an after-hours refuge from the emotional pain of having to see Jesamine for most of every day, but never being able to touch except as their duties dictated, and never to feel or taste her. His drinking had caused a certain consternation on the part of Raphael, with whom he shared quarters, but it had seemed better than living with a constant hurt, and mercifully the young and less-than-outgoing young Hispanian had not made mention of it to anyone else. Yancey Slide could hardly have been unaware of Argo’s newfound taste for the bottle, but he had also said nothing, and, now that they had started on the march south, Riordan, who watched him constantly, also knew his secret and attempted to ensure that Argo did not indulge to any greater extent than the other young officers who thronged the expedition’s mess tents every night.
    Argo glanced at Riordan and, not for the first time, wondered what kind of reports the crippled Sergeant of Horse turned in on him, to whom, and what details they might contain. Argo knew that The Four were not only watched for their own protection, but because, on a number of levels, The Four weren’t totally trusted. Albany folk had deep misgivings about anything even remotely connected to the paranormal, and were uncomfortable with even talk of the Other Places. The new Americans who had settled along the eastern seaboard of the massive and barely explored continent were materialists in a material world, living in the immediate temporal reality. It was totally understandable. To the west of the settled Kingdoms, Commonwealths, and Republics was a vast interior of great rivers, deep forests, deserts, endless grasslands, and snow-capped mountains. The aboriginal confederacies, tribes, and nations were well-versed in the Other Places, ventured on other planes and in other dimensions, and had quickly recognized the paranormal dangers posed by the Mosul; the horror of the battlefield Dark Things, and all the other hideous conjurations of the Zhaithan that they used alongside their more conventional weapons. The comparative newcomers from across the Northern Ocean had, on the other hand, left their ancient knowledge and former beliefs back in the old world. The Mosul invasion had forced them to reluctantly reconsider the old ways, but they still had serious reservations about those among them who practiced the invisible arts, even if it was in the cause of Albany and the freedom of the Americas.
    Argo turned his horse and faced his minder. He gestured to the fields and woods all round them. “I’m back in Virginia, Sergeant of Horse.”
    “I’m well aware of that, Major Weaver, but aren’t we here to be setting its people free?”
    “Until less than a year ago, I was one of those people. Our village was small, just a couple of hundred people, but we had our share of Zhaithan hangings, and men and women burned in the fire for no other reason than they helped the sick, and some collaborator denounced them to the Ministry of Virtue.”
    The Mosul had come to the Americas soon after Argo’s eleventh birthday. The invasion force had landed near Savannah on July 5th ’96 by the old calendar and, on that hot summer’s day, the world he’d known as a child had vanished forever. The Mosul had immediately established multiple beachheads, and then fanned out to cut through the courageous but disorganized forces of the Southland Alliance in a matter of just days. Within a month, Atlanta had fallen and, with Florida cut off and the infamous treaty concluded with George Jebb and his gang of traitors in St. Petersburg, Hassan IX had turned his